"The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution." Paul Cezanne

Chew on this: Ethanol

January 15, 2008

Between 2001 and 2007, U.S. fuel ethanol production capacity grew 220% from 1.9 billion to 6.1 billion gallons. Much of this growth was made possible by government regulation and legislation that actively supports the ethanol industry by creating mandatory ethanol demand and financially attractive investment opportunities in ethanol production capacity.

“Ethanol is a clean-burning, high-octane motor fuel that is produced from renewable sources. At its most basic, ethanol is grain alcohol, produced from crops such as corn.”

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3 Responses to “Chew on this: Ethanol”

When we run out of corn for our food supply we can import all our food from China and hope it’s safe to eat. Its sure a shame that we in the USA have become a third world country government and all the politicians have sold us down the river.Thank God I’m up in years and hopefully won’t see the worst of it.
Now I just heard on the news that Bush has signed a deal with Saudi Arabia to send them smart bombs boy that’s just what we need of coarse all the oil tycoons sleep in the same bed that’s nothing new.
As for ethanol it’s not the answer this is just a ploy for the big boys to make more millions.

“While corn-based ethanol has been touted as a way to solve the climate crisis, it simply isn’t a major improvement over gasoline when it comes to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.

In the US today, about 95 percent of our ethanol is derived from corn kernels. Because corn is such an energy-intensive plant to grow, and because the methods to process corn into ethanol are also energy intensive, it takes seven barrels of oil to produce eight barrels of corn ethanol, from field to processing plant, according to research by the traditionally right-leaning Cato Institute. So when you factor in production, ethanol curbs climate-changing vehicle emissions by a mere 12 percent over gasoline, according to a 2006 University of Minnesota study by Jason Hill and David Tilman. (With blends like E85—85 percent ethanol, 15 percent gas—that emissions reduction plummets to 2 percent.) And that’s only if the corn is grown on existing fields. Converting wildlife preserves to cropland to grow more ethanol would result in a net greenhouse gas release that would exacerbate global warming and negate any benefit…” Read more at http://www.coopamerica.org/pubs/caq/articles/Summer2007cornethanol.cfm

I’m not a big fan of ethanol. I don’t understand the benefits because, as stated in the comments above, it seems that the government shouldn’t be subsidizing an industry that hasn’t proved itself in the free market.